Help me build my dream planted German Blue Ram breeder tank

[Something'sALittleFishy]

I have never done a planted tank before but have been reading about it and want to go all in on a 10-20 gallon for my desktop. I work from home and can, fortunately, do whatever necessary to keep up with routine maintenance. I am a chemist and like to stay on top of chemicals, water changes, etc.

I am set on setting up a 10-20 gallon tank to breed German Blue Rams. I really have no idea where to get started and I am using this forum for a "Help make me a shopping list" for a DREAM aquarium. I would like to keep costs somewhat low but will gladly make investments where it is worth it!

I also understand it can take a while to cycle tanks and really am not sure I understand how plants affect cycles. If you suggest certain plants, please let me know a little bit about you're experiences with them! I also would like to know how water changes work with planted tanks... I am sure that is somewhere on this forum already but I can also see how certain plants could make for different water changes/substrate cleaning.

I am pretty familiar with how to breed GBRs but if anybody here has experience there, I would also love your additional input on this! Thanks

 

[Wills]

Sounds like an interesting project!

For the tank go as big as possible and I’d consider getting a second tank for raising fry and separating the pair if you need to. I’d use sponge filters as it allows micro organisms to grow on the surface which the fry will appreciate.

I’d go through a proper pairing process and start with 8-10 fish and wait for a pair to form and rehome the others. It’s a bit extreme to do but I think it will be worth doing.

The key to success with these fish is high temperatures, low ph, soft water and very clean water with near 0 nitrates.


For plants stick to the easiest to grow things like cryptocorynes, amazon swords, dwarf sag, money wort, limnophilla sessiflora. Lots of twisty wood and some leaf litter

Id recommend not putting any bottom dwellers in like cories and sticking to schooling fish that appreciate the higher temperatures and won’t predate too much on the eggs or dry like rummy nose tetras or marbled hatchet fish? Maybe a small school of each? Or one larger school of one would probs be better.

Water changes here are just as important as ever you will be removing the usual like nitrates and phosphates to protect the fish and prevent algae but also removing hormones the fish produce too. A water change is also a good way of getting fish to spawn sometimes too.

Wills

 

[Byron]

I concur with both posts above. The common or blue ram in any of its colour forms is the species Mikrogeophagus ramirezi, and it has some very demanding requirements as have been mentioned.

Warmth is one, it is best in the 82-85F/28-29C range. Finding tankmates that can be healthy long-term in water this warm is not all that easy.

A 20g is the smallest tank I would suggest for a pair. And as also noted above, this fish must select its mate; putting any female in with a male may sometimes work, but frequently does not, and one of them (usually the female) will be dead if they do not accept one another and bond. Sometimes you can pick out a likely bonding pair from the group in the store tank, or you can purchase a group and hopefully have a pair form.

 

[DeVere]

Sounds like an interesting project!

For the tank go as big as possible and I’d consider getting a second tank for raising fry and separating the pair if you need to. I’d use sponge filters as it allows micro organisms to grow on the surface which the fry will appreciate.

I’d go through a proper pairing process and start with 8-10 fish and wait for a pair to form and rehome the others. It’s a bit extreme to do but I think it will be worth doing.

The key to success with these fish is high temperatures, low ph, soft water and very clean water with near 0 nitrates.


For plants stick to the easiest to grow things like cryptocorynes, amazon swords, dwarf sag, money wort, limnophilla sessiflora. Lots of twisty wood and some leaf litter

Id recommend not putting any bottom dwellers in like cories and sticking to schooling fish that appreciate the higher temperatures and won’t predate too much on the eggs or dry like rummy nose tetras or marbled hatchet fish? Maybe a small school of each? Or one larger school of one would probs be better.

Water changes here are just as important as ever you will be removing the usual like nitrates and phosphates to protect the fish and prevent algae but also removing hormones the fish produce too. A water change is also a good way of getting fish to spawn sometimes too.

Wills

Hi,
I'm new to fishkeeping but I thought you needed the ammonia & nitrites to be at 0 and the nitrates to be between 5 and 40?

 

[Wills]

Hi,
I'm new to fishkeeping but I thought you needed the ammonia & nitrites to be at 0 and the nitrates to be between 5 and 40?

Yes that’s right but with blue rams they are really sensitive to nitrates so you need to keep them as close to zero as possible. Ammonia and nitrite must always be zero though.

 

[Byron]

Hi,
I'm new to fishkeeping but I thought you needed the ammonia & nitrites to be at 0 and the nitrates to be between 5 and 40?

I suspect this is related to cycling, when one adds ammonia and as the nitrifying bacteria appear and multiply, ammonia drops to zero, then nitrite drops to zero, with nitrate at some level. However, there is evidence that nitrate is detrimental to all fish, so getting nitrate down as low as possible before fish go in is advisable; and then, obviously, keeping it as close to zero as you can from then on.

The level of nitrate, the exposure time, and the fish species all factor in with respect to the effect of nitrate on fish. But the fact remains that over time, all freshwater aquarium fish are negatively impacted, and this weakens them so they become more susceptible to other problems that they would otherwise be able to deal with without much trouble.

 

[DeVere]

Thank you, my tank is ammonia 0, nitrites 0 and nitrates 0. Lots of plants and doing well.

 

[DeVere]

Yes that’s right but with blue rams they are really sensitive to nitrates so you need to keep them as close to zero as possible. Ammonia and nitrite must always be zero though.

Yes ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are all 0. Lots of plants ?and happy fish. Thank you.

 

[Something'sALittleFishy]

Sounds like an interesting project!

For the tank go as big as possible and I’d consider getting a second tank for raising fry and separating the pair if you need to. I’d use sponge filters as it allows micro organisms to grow on the surface which the fry will appreciate.

I’d go through a proper pairing process and start with 8-10 fish and wait for a pair to form and rehome the others. It’s a bit extreme to do but I think it will be worth doing.

The key to success with these fish is high temperatures, low ph, soft water and very clean water with near 0 nitrates.


For plants stick to the easiest to grow things like cryptocorynes, amazon swords, dwarf sag, money wort, limnophilla sessiflora. Lots of twisty wood and some leaf litter

Id recommend not putting any bottom dwellers in like cories and sticking to schooling fish that appreciate the higher temperatures and won’t predate too much on the eggs or dry like rummy nose tetras or marbled hatchet fish? Maybe a small school of each? Or one larger school of one would probs be better.

Water changes here are just as important as ever you will be removing the usual like nitrates and phosphates to protect the fish and prevent algae but also removing hormones the fish produce too. A water change is also a good way of getting fish to spawn sometimes too.

Wills

Thank you! That is an interesting idea but I wonder if there is a way to find paired GBRs at the LFS or order them online before dropping that much on them?

 

[Wills]

Thank you! That is an interesting idea but I wonder if there is a way to find paired GBRs at the LFS or order them online before dropping that much on them?

Its not impossible to spot pairs in a store tank but you would need to find the right store to do it, it could be extra tricky because of how fragile Rams are, in some shops they are going to just be too stressed to display mating/pairing behaviour. I wouldnt order online as you will likely just recieve 1 male and 1 female rather than a bonded pair.

Wills